Publishers Weekly
04/01/2024
This incisive comedy from Miller (The Change) finds a Georgia town transformed amid a fight over book bans. Lula Dean, a restless empty nester who’s starved for attention, finds purpose by banning books she deems inappropriate for children, among them Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl and Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Furthering her crusade, Lula stocks a makeshift lending library in front of her house with “appropriate” titles like The Southern Belle’s Guide to Etiquette. Lindsay Underwood, a lesbian teen, takes action by sneaking banned books into the lending library under the cover of dust jackets belonging to Lula’s approved books. As various townspeople read the works Lula meant to ban, they start changing their lives and the town for the better (a formerly subservient woman outs her husband for secretly collecting Nazi memorabilia; a high school football star comes to accept his gay older brother; and a group of teens rally against the town’s Confederate monuments). The story climaxes with a heated race for town mayor between Lindsay’s mother, Beverly, who vehemently opposes the book bans, and Lula. While some of the plot turns strain credulity, they make for a clever send-up of book banners’ misplaced fears. Miller’s fans will flock to her latest page-turner as social critique. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (June)
From the Publisher
Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books is shaping up to be this summer’s Big Read. Kirsten Miller has that rare ability to take a serious subject and make it very, very funny. I enjoyed this novel and you will too.” — James Patterson
“Is it possible for a book to be important, funny, relevant, and wildly entertaining all at once? Kirsten Miller proves the answer is a resounding YES. Please read this one and pass it along!” — Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of The Lost and Found Bookshop
“The Change is like a guttural rage scream (and somehow a soft, tearful hug) of a book, and I couldn't have loved it any more.” — Emily Henry
“There is a specter haunting women—the specter of rage. Kirsten Miller has woven a fun, gripping, lush, real fable, a Stepford Wives for the twenty-first century, a Witches of Eastwick if it had actually been written by a woman. The Change is poisonous as henbane, and twice as delicious.” — New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe
“Searing and witty and full of so much warranted rage. This was a book I didn’t know I was aching for. I cheered on every page.” — New York Times bestselling author Erin A. Craig
“Miller triumphs...The Change is that rare treat: a suspenseful story with great pacing, memorable characters, and an engaging voice. Fantastic in every way, this fierce anthem against misogyny is a smash.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A pointed, punchy, and potent thriller...wry and clever, serious and exacting, and masterfully suspenseful.” — Booklist (starred review)
#1 New York Times bestselling author James Patterson
Kirsten Miller has that rare ability to take a serious subject and make it very, very funny. I enjoyed this novel, and you will too.”
